Expired - Ryan Kwanten (2021) - Nelson Street, Mongkok

Jack emerges from the metro system at what is exit E1 of Mongkok station. This thoroughfare was originally Nelson Street but this section (and the same on the other side of Nathan Road where exit E2 is) is now fully pedestrianised. Also, the Langham Place Shopping Mall removed a big chunk of Nelson Street on this side of Nathan Road.

Expired - Ryan Kwanten (2021) - Prat Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

I can't remember the reason behind Jack going to Prat Avenue as my brain had long switched off from what was going on, but he finds himself here in front of Wah Kee Snacks. This place was gone by the end of 2020 which gives a good indicator of when it was filmed.

Expired - Ryan Kwanten (2021) - Mongkok Road Pedestrian Bridge

Jack follows his target up onto the pedestrian flyover that runs above Mongkok Road.

Expired - Ryan Kwanten (2021) - Shantung Street, Mongkok

Jack is hired to kill a man and follows him from a laundrette down a alleyway, but passes along Shantung Street First with the Hollywood Shopping Centre in the background. That blue lighting has since been removed. Despite this movie only being a few years old so many businesses seen on screen have since disappeared, mainly thanks to Covid.

Expired - Ryan Kwanten (2021) - Soy Street, Mongkok

I'm going to finish up 2025 with a film I had heard about afew years back but then forgot about. I was expecting to hear more about it but, after watching it, I realise it sank into obscurity because it's just a bit of a dull film. Originally called Loveland, the film was renamed to Expired. Quite fitting because that's what happened to my interest about ten minutes into it.

To be fair it is a low-budget independent Australian movie. That doesn't excuse the confusing plot and uninspiring dialogue though. The locations are all over the shop, making it a real pain to post about them in any sort of linear fashion but the cinematography is nice. I just wish they had saved their money on the Hong Kong airfares and put it into some better "futuristic" effects though. You'd think shooting in Hong Kong would offer the opportunity of some great locations, but the vast majority are just the rather shabby looking streets of Mongkok, making me wonder what the point was. They could've just saved their dosh and filmed it in Australia, at least at street level. The film was released in 2021 but it looks like a pre-Covid Hong Kong on view. 

Anyway, the film centres around a hitman called Jack (Ryan Kwanten) who stalks, and then forms a friendship with, April (Jillian Nguyen), a girlie bar singer/performer. Jack's ill because he is the product of some sort of corporate experimentation and the company want him back for tests. But then all of a sudden he is better again and I have no idea why.

The film opens with Jack walking along Soy Street on his way to meet a policeman who tells him who to kill, and gives him the info and money. Soy Street is probably the most used location in the film and keeps cropping up from a variety of different angles throughout. I think I got them all, more or less, in the screencaps below which are from multiple points through the film.

The robot thing in that lower image (above) used to stand outside a cafe called "Double Happiness Cart Noodles" - 旺囍車仔麵. I think the place was a victim of Hong Kong Covid policy because it closed soon after the film was shot. The shop sign outside had a huge bowl of noodles stuck to it which also made it into the film (below).

Soy Street also pops up in a scene when Jack is being followed by a mystery bald man (Andrew Ng).

The west side of Soy Street also pops up later in the film as Jack tracks down and follows Dr Bergman (Hugo Weaving).

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Cherry Street, Tai Kok Tsui

Another one of the old finds that I forgot to post back in the day. This one is from a sequence that sees the two male protagonists in the film, played by Brad Harris and Dietmar Schönherr, taking a rickshaw ride around whilst they sightsee. They stop on Cherry Street at the northern end of the old Yaumatei Typhoon Shelter.

The low-rise windowed building on the left was a row of factories/godowns, whose northern end (off screen to the left) marked the end of Argyle Street. It wasn't until this building was demolished that Argyle Street and Cherry Street were able to link up like they do today.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Pentecostal Holiness Church Rousseau Memorial Church, Ap Lei Chau

The foot chase sequence in Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka is a mixture of footage shot over in Kowloon Bay, with the end part filmed in Ap Lei Chau. In one of the scenes we see Sutchuen (Maria Minh) trying to escape her pursuers and there is a small blue and white painted chapel in the background (back right in the below image). This was the original Pentecostal Holiness Church Rousseau Memorial Church on the Ap Lei Chau waterfront.

The church was demolished not long after and redeveloped in Rousseau Heights (亨利閣), an apartment building that still contains a version of the church. It's not clear if the Church organisation developed the building themsleves or sold the land with the proviso of keeping a place of worship on site.

Gen Y Cops - Edison Chen (2000) - SCMP Office, Tai Po Industrial Estate

Here's one I couldn't identify when I was initially researching locations for this film, but I finally found out it was the (former) SCMP offices at the Tai Po Industrial Estate. As far as I am aware the SCMP moved out of this place just before COVID came crashing down on our heads and it currently sits empty. However, the green painted walkways that span the central office space are quite well known (just not to me).

This place and the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine are used for the Police HQ.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Kau U Fong, Central

Kau U Fong features briefly in a scene where Marc (Marc Briand) is wandering around the streets. In the shot below he is at the junction with Aberdeen Street with what was originally the Central Clinic behind him. By the time of this film though, the building was already been used by the Central District Kaifong Welfare Association. I think the clinic may have been operating at the same time though. The small building was demolished circa 1997 and the site currently hosts the Lan Kwai Fong Hotel.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing - William Holden (1955) - Kayamally Building, Queen's Road Central

Here's another oldie but forgotten about location that I was supposed to post years ago. This is the scene in the film where Suyin goes to meet her friend for coffee. The exterior of the coffee shop was filmed outside the Kayamally Building at what was 20-22 Queen's Road Central. You can just see the neighbouring Shell House in the background of the screen shots below.

For the interior scenes though, this was a studio set. The image through the cafe window was a back projection of some footage filmed on Queen's Road Central at the bottom of Pottinger Street. I've included the shot of that for reference.

The plot that these two buildings (Kayamally Bldg and Shell House) sat on now hosts the Central Tower building, that occupies the whole corner with Wyndham Street.

I have explained in my older posts that every single dialogue scene in this movie was shot on a sound stage. Not a single scene involving dialogue was shot on location. I'm not familiar enough with sound recording technology to know if this was because the technology (sync sound) didn't exist at the time, or whether the general noise in Hong Kong simply made it impossible to do cleanly (which is why many local films were still filmed this way well into the 80s and 90s). If you know, please feel free to comment.

You can just make out the sign for Shell House in the background.

Studio set with a back projection of Pottinger Street

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Route Twisk

In this final post for this film, we can see that some of the aerial footage of the escaping truck was shot above Route Twisk. The images below show the bends in the road next to the Hong Kong Gun Club (whose terraced berms can be seen on the left hand side in the bottom image) and a small sqautter settlement called Tai Kiu Tsuen.

Just a bit later we see the truck crossing a wooden railed bridge that was located just a little bit down from Tai Kiu Tsuen. This section of road has actually been straightened a bit and this bend is not quite as sheer as it used to be.

Later in the chase we see another section of the road where it intersects with Tai Mo Shan Road. This is exactly the same place where Operation Lipstick shot some scenes the same year. Here's the reminder.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Clearwater Bay Road, Tai Hang Tun

The final truck chase is a mixture of shots taken along Route Twisk and Clearwater Bay Road - two routes quite distant from each other - and edited together to make a single sequence. The shots below are from the scene where the pursuing police cars all run into each other and was shot at the very southern end of Clearwater Bay Road at Tai Hang Tun. The area down the slope to the right is the carpark. The large hill in the background (Tin Ha Shan) of the top two images is actually located on the opposite side of the (Clearwater) bay. In the middle ground to the left you can see the pavilion that marks the kite flying area, it's the same pavilion still there today and was featured in Yellow Emanuelle.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Shek Kong

Agent 009 and sidekick head up in a small plane to try and find the escaping horse truck. The first aerial images we see are of the Sek Kong runway and surrounding area.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Wang Tau Hom Resettlement Estate

Agent 009 and his help, Huang Mao (Lee Kwan) follow the singer to the bank where she is picking up the fake cash left by her now dead boyfriend. However, she is killed as she leaves and 009 and co make off with the stash of notes with the bad guys in pursuit. One of the streets we see them driving down is Wang Tau Hom East Road in the old Wang Tau Hom Resettlement Estate. This place has since been turned into into the current Wang Tau Hom Estate (the Govt removed the "Resettlement" from the name of all the old estates that were subsequently redeveloped) and the whole area here is now more commonly known as Lok Fu. The same view today can be seen here.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Central Police Station, Hollywood Road

I can't vouch for the interior shots but following the car explosion, everyone retires to the Central Police Station to discuss their plan of action.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Yuk Yat Street, Hung Hom

The bad guys place a time bomb on the retrieved submerged car so that any evidence of their shenanigans is destroyed. This shot shows the said car being towed up Yuk Yat Street just prior to exploding. The white building behind was part of the Wyler Textiles factory that was located on this block until it was replaced by Wyler Gardens in 1979. The taller buildings in the background are still around. They're the "Lucky Building" and "Kapok Industrial Building" on San Ma Tau Street. You can just see a gas holder to the left of the buildings - part of the still in use Ma Tau Kok Gas Works.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Shun Fung Street, Hung Hom

The band member is discivered by the bad guys and beaten up for stealing the money. As the baddies decide what to do with him, he steals a car and drives away. It doesn't end well for him though as he loses control along Shun Fung Street and steers himself into the harbour. The Winner Building was a real place and located opposite Shun Fung Street on Yuk Yat Street. "Bayview" now sits on the site.

In the second image you can see the famous "Fish Tail Rock" (魚尾石) in the background. This rock formation was opriginally part of a small offshore islet called Hoi Sham Island. But during the 1960s the reclamation of Hung Hom Bay meant it was absorbed into the new waterfront. I'm not sure but I think the island had yet to be completely absorbed at the time of filming. These days the area has been turned into a small park called Hoi Sham Park. The images below show that the shoreline where the car is being fished out is the same shoreline that can be seen today i.e. no further reclamation has been done since then (at least for now...).

In the far background of that second shot you can also see the former Hok Yuen Power Station (far left) and the darker Green Island Cement Works next door. The owner of Green Island Cement, Li K-shing, went on to develop that whole area into what is now a development called "Laguna Verde".

Fish Tail Rock on the right